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The most successful transmedia case: Star Wars

Speaking of the transmedia, I think that the most important thing is that with the new platform of the transmedia such as the Internet and smartphone, people have been provided access to the parts of the text that are not available through the TV or the film (Evans 2011). In today’s world, it’s hard to find one content which is published on only one platform. Take the book as an example, nowadays, people could read a book through the Internet such as a website or an App, and they also can read by using Kindle or smartphone. Therefore, transmedia is a useful method which people can use to raise their business.

In my view, the most successful transmedia case is Star Wars. Since 1977, the Star Wars has become a worldwide pop culture phenomenon with the release of the first episode. It was followed by Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983). After these three films, Star Wars became a famous IP which has driven a series of peripheral products such as books, TV series, games, toys, comic books and clothes.

The book:

The TV series:

The games:

The toys:

The comic books:

The clothes:

With the continuous production of these items, Star Wars has been occupying a vital part of the pop culture. Even if Disney released the new episode in 2015, it had been 10 years since the last one was released, but the whole world fans still ran to the cinema with enthusiasm.

In my opinion, Transmedia is a new power which has impact storytelling. In today’s world, no matter the TV or the film, content are updated day by day. It’s getting hard to attract people’s attention and let audience remember by using just one method. Transmedia is a system which separates the original content into a lot of sub-content. And then, people would give these sub-contents individual market and target audience to attract more potential fans. Meanwhile, transmedia is money-saving. If Star Wars wants to contain a certain number of the fans, it must keep updating its content. However, it’s impossible to produce a film year by year, especially Star Wars is not a low budget film. Therefore, producing peripheral products and using social media is not only profitable but also money-saving.